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Sunday, June 24, 2012

California, I'm coming home

It would have been all too easy for me to get really comfortable here, to continue relishing the customs and the food and the language and the people, and to resist the jolting change of moving back, so after renewing my contract last year I felt like I needed to find a way to curb this impending habit. Thanks to Letizia I found my prescription: Joni Mitchell. I've listened and related to this beautiful song countless times and it has provided me with waves of different emotions, but the important fact of the matter is that it has played a significant role in the push to get me back to the states, and for that I am very thankful because ultimately home is where I want to be. I think the song more or less describes how I feel about returning. So to the folks I dig in California, I'm coming home (tomorrow!). Will you take me as I am?

Sitting in a park in Paris, France
Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won't give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had
Still a lot of lands to see
But I wouldn't want to stay here
It's too old and cold and settled in its ways here
Oh but California

California I'm coming home
I'm going to see the folks I dig
I'll even kiss a Sunset pig
California I'm coming home

I met a redneck on a Grecian isle
Who did the goat dance very well
He gave me back my smile
But he kept my camera to sell
Oh the rogue the red red rogue
He cooked good omelettes and stews
And I might have stayed on with him there
But my heart cried out for you California

Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
Just gives you the blues
Just gives you the blues
So I bought me a ticket
I caught a plane to Spain
Went to a party down a red dirt road
There were lots of pretty people there
Reading Rolling Stone reading Vogue
They said "How long can you hang around?"
I said a week maybe two
Just until my skin turns brown
Then I'm going home to California

California I'm coming home
Oh will you take me as I am
Strung out on another man
California I'm coming home

Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
More about the war
And the bloody changes
Oh will you take me as I am?
Will you take me as I am?
Will you?

Travel Size Me

Back in the Bay after one year at l'Università di Bologna and two working for Georgetown at Villa Le Balze in Florence, I'm delighted and determined to make this American chapter in my life as blog-worthy as the last. And if some gelato sneaks its way in, well really I just can't help that.